Blood Trails

Blood Trails

Popular wisdom has it that O.J. Simpson left a blood trail from the murder scene on Bundy to his Bronco parked in the ally, up his driveway on Rockingham and into his bedroom.

The logic behind this belief comes from:

1) A crisp set of bloody shoeprints in O.J.’s size on the murder scene.

2) Four blood drops identified as O.J.'s on the walkway between the Bundy killing cage and the ally said by the prosecution to have dripped from the left side of a bleeding killer.

3) Blood drops on the Bundy back gate containing O.J.’s DNA.

4) A reported fingerprint in blood on the back gate lock.

5) A small, reddish-brown spot near the door handle of the Bronco parked on Rockingham.

6) Blood smears inside the Bronco.

7) The belief that one trail of blood drops led from the Bronco parked hastily on Rockingham, into the gate, around the driveway and into the foyer.

8) The belief that O.J. left a pair of bloody socks on his bedroom rug.

9) O.J. had a large cut on the finger of his left hand when he returned to Rockingham from Chicago and told a highly unlikely story of when and how he got it.

The trouble with all of this blood trail evidence is that none of it connects to O.J. in a rational, unbroken pattern before it was tested. Nor does it connect to anyone or anything from Bundy to Rockingham without the observations, discoveries, theories and actions of Mark Fuhrman and his partner Brad Roberts.

1. The shoeprints were real. They were in O.J.’s size. They were also in Fuhrman’s size and one clear heel print appears in the photograph of Fuhrman pointing to the bloody Bundy glove.

2. The four large, round blood drops on Bundy were real, although the blood on the bottom of the back gate was not collected for several weeks and blood dropped from a moving person should have had “trails” indicating direction of travel. One drop out of four approximately six inches in front and six inches to the left of one shoeprint was the basis for suggesting that the killer bled from his left side. The other blood drops were between the shoeprints. The LAPD lab did not send samples of these blood drops to the FBI to test for the blood preservative EDTA used in the test tube containing O.J. blood. 1.5 cc's of O.J.'s blood were missing from this vial. The trainee who collected these samples testified that she put her initials on the coin envelope that contained the samples. One of those envelopes had no initials and the cloth inside then identified as O.J.'s showed wet transfer stains whereas the collected blood stain was dry. Fuhrman dropped the first hint that the killer left a trail of his own blood in item 13 of his Bundy notes: "...Suspect possibly bitten by dog?"

3. Item 13 of Fuhrman's Bundy notes is also were the first indication appears of blood on the back gate. They did not appear in the notes taken by Dennis Fung, the criminalist in charge, and were not photographed or collected 9 weeks after the murder scene had been hosed down. The FBI’s test on the back gate blood showed large concentrations of EDTA.

4. Item 15 of Fuhrman's notes says, "Rear Gate, inside dead bolt (turn knob type) poss blood smudge and visible fingerprint." Only Fuhrman and Roberts said that they saw a fingerprint in blood on the lock. Lead investigators Vannatter and Lange said it was not there. The alleged fingerprint was never photographed and neither Fuhrman nor Roberts pointed it out to the detectives in charge.

5. The reddish-brown spot near the Bronco door handle was real. This tiny spot (half the size of a dime) yielded a positive result in a “presumptive test” that could not distinguish between human blood, animal blood or taco sauce. It was never tested for DNA or even A-B-O -typed and therefore never identified as O.J.’s blood or either of the murder victim’s. Mark Fuhrman found that reddish-brown spot. He testified that he thought it was blood, possibly linked to the Bundy murders. He alerted the lead detectives to the possibility that O.J. or the maid might be in trouble. He then volunteered to go over the Ashford St. wall to open the gates for the other officers to enter O.J.’s estate where Fuhrman and Roberts found more blood evidence.

6. Fuhrman’ partner Brad Roberts was the first to say he saw blood in the Bronco – through the vehicle’s tinted glass. Fuhrman claimed that he saw blood on the doorsill without opening the door. The blood in the Bronco and on the doorsill appeared in photos taken on the 16^th of June. However, three people who entered the unguarded vehicle before then did not see blood .The doorsill could be seen only with the door open.

7. When O.J. returned from Chicago with a large cut on the finger of his left hand, Brad Roberts told him that there was a blood trail leading from Bundy to Rockingham. There were two blood trails on the Rockingham driveway, one of which contained numerous blood drops all consistent with a man bleeding heavily from his left hand entering the Rockingham gate. Roberts put down markers for those blood drops. Fung picked them up and put down his own. The three blood drops photographed, marked and collected by Dennis Fug near the gate led out to the street with “trails” indicating direction of travel. There were also three tiny blood drops clustered in his foyer. They contained no EDTA. Fuhrman criticized Dennis Fung for not photographing and collecting the blood drops on the left of the driveway that Roberts marked. They represented the only physical evidence consistent with Fuhrman's theory that O.J. entered the gate after parking his Bronco in a panic at an extreme angel to the curb. The angle measured exactly 2-degrees.

8. Dennis Fung collected a pair of sheer, dark blue socks on the Persian rug next to O.J.’s bed. Dennis Fung and his superiors Greg Matheson and Michelle Kessler looked at the socks and none of them saw indications of blood. Dr. Henry Lee demonstrated how easy this would have been to do even with dark socks simply by holding them up to a light. When Matheson, Kessler and Fung looked at the socks again a month later all of them saw blood. Two anonymous sources leaked a story that the blood was Nicole’s Simpson’s before any tests were made. When the tests were made they showed that the blood was, indeed, Nicole Simpson’s. It contained large concentrations of EDTA and appeared on one outside part of a sock and the corresponding inside portions of the sock, indicating that no foot was inside of it when the blood was wet. Fuhrman and Roberts found the socks.

9. O.J.’s story of cutting the same finger twice only a few hours apart defied probability. However, he did cut his hands frequently without knowing when or how he did it and the small exculpatory blood drops on Rockingham matched the small cut he said he had before he left for Chicago. It was so small that nobody he had contact with on the way to Chicago or in his Chicago hotel noticed it although he made no attempt to hide his hands from anyone. This cut could not have left the large, round blood drops on Bundy that Fuhrman speculated came from a dog bite or the blood drops on Rockingham that Roberts marked and Fung ignored. O.J.'s unlikely story that the large cut on his finger came in Chicago matches all of the physical evidence and eyewitness statements that he left Brentwood with a tiny cut and returned with a large one. – Jasper